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Netscape Finally Put Down
Stony Stevenson writes to point out that Netscape has finally reached end of line with the release of version 9.0.0.6. A pop-up will offer users the choice of switching to Firefox, Flock, or remaining with the dead browser, but no new updates will be released. "Nearly 14 years after the once mighty browser made its first desktop appearance as Mosaic Netscape 0.9, its disappearance comes as little surprise. Although Netscape accounted for more than 80 per cent of the browser market in 1995, the arrival of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the same year brought stiff competition and surpassed Netscape within three years."
I loved Netscape back in its day, but this really isn't going to be overly painful for the world in general.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced.
But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird.
The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire
and thunder upon them. For the beast had been
reborn with its strength renewed, and the
followers of Mammon cowered in horror.
from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15
Netscape is only familiar to people who've used the internet 10 years ago. The Joe Sixpacks who picked up a "pooter" 5 or 6 years ago to get on the "internets" never heard of it, or of Firefox.
How many times is Netscape going to die?
"And there be unix which have made themselves unix for the kingdom of heaven's sake." - Matt. 19:12
I remember well those days. IE was no competition to Netscape, Netscape was much superior. IE2 was unbloated but lacked support for many features that Netscape 3 had, I guess it didn't even support tables, for sure it didn't have frames, Javascript, etc.
IE3 was the worst piece of software I have seen. EVER!
The fact was that Netscape was its own enemy there. Netscape 3 was really good, a lean and fast browser. It didn't have good support for CSS, but was years ahead of IE. Then they launched Netscape Communicator. Man, was it slow. They made the only possible download the bundle of browser, mail, news reader. Even Mozilla when they got the code from Netscape they had it bundled, further on they split it again to launch Phoenix (then Firebird then Firefox) to start getting some success again.
Netscape didn't die from competition of IE, at least not in terms of features. If Netscape wasn't the only one to blame for its own death, Microsoft's part in it was only by bundling the browser into the OS, not by making a product that could compete with Netscape.
Maybe the US government is sponsoring them. You need IE or Netscape to get a US visa. So if, say, you have a Mac or run Linux, then Netscape has a monopoly.
I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
Second System Effect. Basically, you make a first version that is lean, does a few things well, and release that. Then in the second system you add a bunch of "it would be cool if..." things, making the second version huge, bloated, and not as good as the first version.
Vista, as compared to Windows 2000, for a big example.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
This reminds me, I wonder what Lycos is doing these days.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Horseshit! Are you saying that people eat animals?! We need to get this onto the front page of Slashdot, neigh, the Times!!! Is there a gallop poll regarding Japan's or the United States' horse meat consumption? And does it give you the trots?
For Barbaro's sake... the horse had a good run. Making hay from an article about web browsers is to saddle the issue with an agenda; please do not bridle our argument by being a horse's ass. This is a discussion about software, and to jockey animal rights into it is just putting the cart before the horse. So slow down there, cowboy... Reign it in. While I am sure you're chomping at the bit to get this kind of information out, I am fresh out of insensitive horse puns and we will have to put this discussion out to stud.
Polo!
FairTax baby!
Step 1: about:config
Step 2: general.useragent.extra.firefox=Netscape/6.2
Step 3: reload
Step 4: profit!
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Back in 1995-97, I was working for a major European media/publishing company. We were one of their (Netscape's) largest customers having bought around 200 Netscape Publishing System Licenses (NPS) for around USD 80k each! - well those were the good ol' days.
... no, not slap, a fist? A hit with a 10-ton-fist in the face... I was so furious that I stood up and said: "You know guys, with this attitude I think you'll be dead as a company at latest within two-to-three years." - and immediately left the meeting.
... I dunno, it was the httpd-server, which was the basis for Apache later on (a-patchy server); we dumped all Netscape software, even including the browser.
The software was very primitive but it was a solid basis for what we needed - in our company I was responsible for the platform so I came up with a solid specification of what we needed and how Netscape should add this to NPS. We had a meeting on a very high level with Netscape management in Mountain View in September 1996(!) to discuss my paper, which I had already discussed in with Netscape Europe and managed to actually get through to Netscape US.
The meeting was a revelation for me. By that time, the term "Intranet" was becoming a hip-term. There we were, three or four people from our company (by that time, I was "Director International Technology Co-operations" - what a title, isn't it?) - and about five or six people from Netscape.
We explained all our needs again and told them, that we would be of course willing to pay for all these enhancements. I specifically had collected input from another ten or fifteen other media companies from Europe to come up with a neat spec for Netscape - i.e. I did all the job, which they should've done in the first place.
After the explanation and discussion of the paper (three hours or so), one top Netscape manager said: "You know, there are only about 20-30 publishers around the world - but hundreds and thousands of companies needing Intranet solutions. So, therefore, we have decided to go for the Intranet market and thus will drop the media/publishing business. I'm sorry, but we can't implement the spec because it's just a too small market!" (not withstanding the fact that there are hundreds and thousands of media companies around the world...)
I was furious - it was like a
My boss came after me and tried to convince me to come back to the meeting (though not wholeheartedly as I could see he was furious as well). So, I actually left the office, the building and waiting outside of the Netscape building in the sun - waiting for my colleagues to come out.
In the end, we left Netscape, went home and I and a small team have implemented what we needed by ourselves and completely dumped Netscape software, including Netscape Web Server (what was it's name), switching to
That was my experience with Netscape... It was not Microsoft, it was not AOL - it was their arrogant, stupid, high-horsed, customers-don't-count attitude that killed them. It was their f***ed-up management!
As I recall, this happened around the same time IE was built solid into Windows 98 and Microsoft's "embrace / extend / extinguish" strategy pumped full blast with "IE Active Channels." Microsoft started MSN as an internet service provider and AOL was a little nervous about Microsoft making Windows rely on MSN. So AOL bought Netscape and kept the browser alive as a bargaining chip. At the time AOL was the #1 internet provider and if AOL made everyone use Netscape, Microsoft's internet strategy would be dead in the water. This threat kept the AOL icon on the desktop of default installs of Windows.
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Hippie Logger Jock
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Mozilla = Mosaic Killer. The original codename for Netscape Navigator. Mosaic was public domain and Netscape Navigator was closed source until JWZ persuaded Netscape to open the code as a way of countering MSIE's burgeoning dominance. Irony eh?
Bye bye Netscape
Basically, Netscape was executed the "embrace and extinguish" strategy on Mosaic; although I preferred Mosaic's simplicity, eventually so many web pages depended on Netscape's non-standard (and largely half-assed) extensions people had to use Netscape.
Of course, Mosaic may have been too purist.
In any case, Netscape was taking a page out of Microsoft's book. Microsoft knew exactly what Netscape was up to; they understood that eventually the www wasn't going to be a globally distributed hypertext document, but a software deployment platform. Netscape was on track to owning that platform, and Microsoft, whose business was built around owning the platform everybody used, decided to displace them. Neither party was particularly virtuous here.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.